WORKING LANDSCAPE EKKERSRIJT

Ekkersrijt business park (municipality of Son en Breugel) has a large diversity of businesses.The site of 260 hectares lies on the A50, to the north boundary of the city of Eindhoven. Key areas are Science Park Eindhoven Ekkersrijt and Meubelplein Ekkersrijt. On Ekkersrijt are approximately 300 businesses located with a combined amount of nearly 10,000 employees. Ekkersrijt sees a whole new phase coming towards it, causing critical questions about potential future use and development.
Most important is the arrival of a new generation of businesses that include public functions such as shopping and leisure destinations. Ekkersrijt also has to deal with a changing environment. This environment literally changes because of the arrival of new infrastructure (including the recent connection of the A50, the future Noorderlijke Randweg, and the planned introduction of HOV and Slow Lane) and the development of adjacent areas. But it is especially figuratively, by global trends and the associated transforming economic structure in the Brainport region and the related development and repositioning of campuses and other locations.

Questions about potential and future use of Ekkersrijt are fundamental. The existing Master Plan dates from 2004 and Ekkersrijt needs more conclusive answers. The consolidate of the existing situation is also not a possible option. Required is a search for a possible new identity as Ekkersrijt Working Landscape in the 21st century and the spatial and programmatic challenges resulting from them. From these deliberations Industrieschap Ekkersrijt, Brainport Development Company and the Province of North Brabant joint initiative to create a vision for Ekkersrijt.

The industrial area of Ekkersrijt has the prospect to grow from the current discrete and moderate marginal zone for companies and furniture stores to an exciting environment where the work is interspersed with other exciting forms of urban use.
On Ekkersrijt working is fully integrated into urban life. Here it feels that companies are not hidden, but accessible to everyone. The landscape is designed to stimulate businesses and employees to interact an cooperate. The involvement of businesses and employees in their work environment is great - they are initiatives of new and surprising use of the area. Ekkersrijt therefore evolves into a Living Landscape - a new type of urban landscape with distinctive features.